


there let me live forlorn

by kalimero



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Dream Sex, Dreams vs. Reality, F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Post-Movie(s), Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 04:05:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4772846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalimero/pseuds/kalimero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She comes to him in his dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there let me live forlorn

* * *

 

# there let me live forlorn

or

**the five tenets of everything in between**

 

_Is it like this_

_In death's other kingdom_

_Waking alone_

_At the hour when we are_

_Trembling with tenderness_

_Lips that would kiss_

_Form prayers to broken stone._

_\--- T. S. Eliot, The Hollow Men_

 

**i.**

She comes to him in his dreams.

They never speak. They don’t have to.

Sometimes they only stare at each other, standing in dark, forsaken places, abandoned buildings that he half recognizes through the mist of memory, lonely roads that lead nowhere, an endless no man’s land as far as the eye can see. A voice whispers to him then: _Rest_. _Rest here, rest now_. He looks at her, looks at the ground, back at her, afraid that she will be gone but she always remains, her eyes brimming with unshed tears and determination. The silence stretches between them. And sometimes, that’s all there is to it.

This is not one of those times. This is one of those times where they take a step, where he takes a step that he would never take, prompting her into action. She hooks her metal arm in his shoulder pad to draw him near and he crashes his lips against hers and it’s always like this, frantic, frenzied. They claw at each other, a desperate impossible fantasy to soothe an ache for _something_. It’s enough to draw blood from their joined mouths as her teeth graze his bottom lip and he smiles, he smiles because this is a dream and it doesn’t have to make sense (except that it does). They’re in a room that he remembers, stumbling from wall to wall, knocking over shelves and everything else in their path. He remembers the smell of guzzoline. She grips his head and together they taste iron and sweat and dust and it’s sweeter than it should be, beautiful even, just like her. He wants to worship her but something isn’t right, it never is. This is- this is-

They slow down and lean into each other and he buries his head in her shoulder and she touches his left side and suddenly her hand is red and damp. He’s breathing hard and she narrows her eyes with sad reproach, as if to say, _you’re hurt_ , and yes, there is blood gushing from his side, and he dimly realizes that he is bearing her wound. There is an agony, somewhere, buried inside, an agony that tells him he should let go, why can’t he let go? She gently kisses his brow like Jessie used to do when he was in pain and he closes his eyes and inhales deeply. It has never been like this before.

When he looks up again, they’re standing in a waterfall, already soaking wet. Carefully he sheds the heavy leather jacket while she raises a hand to scrub away the black grease that guards her mind, never letting him out of her sight. The aqua cola has a cooling effect, it’s freezing, in fact, and he shivers ever so slightly as he tilts his head back and lets it all wash over him, life, want, darkness. There is a light pulsating faintly behind the flowing veil of cold but he turns his back to it because this is his punishment, not to give in, to wander forever but never there, to cling to _this_. She circles him, a thoughtful look on her face, and he wishes he could know what she’s thinking but then he does, doesn’t he? She’s thinking what he’s thinking. If only there was a way to forget. If only...

Slowly, she closes the distance between them if such a narrow space could be called distance. Her eyes pierce through him, not without compassion but with an unflinching clarity that belies their soft depth. The faint drizzle coats their skin in a shine reserved for the drowned and he traces the drops descending from her chin, can feel them falling from his hair, a cycle without beginning and end. Part of him wants to reach out, touch her cheek with his lips, her neck, with his tongue, wants to feel the sting of the metal fingers digging into his arm, his back, wants to bury himself in her and cease in the heat of the flesh but- this is wrong. He can’t. He takes a step back, knowing that he’s betraying her, someone, himself, simply by allowing this to fester and taint what they- there is no they, not anymore, it’s been months since they last saw each other even though he’s seeing her still, a diminishing shadow calling to him. She opens her arms as if to catch him and he hadn’t realized he’d been falling but he’s falling now, like the water around them rushing towards these rocks and he realizes- he realizes-

He blinks and opens his eyes with a groan, unfortunately unaware of whatever grand realization was about to hit him, now that he’s awake. He spits out some sand and rolls over, shaking his head in mild bewilderment. There’s the sky above, the vast sky of the night, dark and yet illuminated with all these stars beyond reach and it might be beautiful to anyone other than him. It’s chilly, freezing, in fact, and he regrets that he chose this place to lie down but it was more promising than the naked wasteland. So he’s lying in the rusty carcass of an abandoned car wreck, looking up to the nothingness of the sky, still in pain.

\---

Eventually, they all fade. This, too, shall pass.

 

**ii.**

They fuck. Sometimes this is needed after all. He doesn’t remember when it started.

It’s primal and undignified and endless. Itches are annoying and scratching them makes things worse so there’s no positive to any of it. Other than the fact that it feels good and right, when it doesn’t feel wrong. It’s wrong, he knows it, he had his great epiphany but mind and body are not one and the same. It wouldn’t work in reality, as they call it, because this and that. But in this realm they transcend. When they move together in a rhythm of inevitability, their very beings begin to merge.

Or so he dreams.

When she moans in his arms as he pushes in, when she cries, it feels like something that cannot exist, not like this, and therefore must never be which is a shame, really, because it’s so much lovelier than anything else in the world, a treasure, even as this pale imitation.

It’s a communion. So they kiss and consume and celebrate where there is nothing to celebrate and he hangs his head in shame.

Sometimes, when her eyes are closed, it seems like she is silently praying although she doesn’t strike him as the praying type. But clearly she is. He couldn’t be. Who would she be praying to? If gods ever existed, they are dead and the worshippers are dancing around molten calves in their stead. Immortan Joes will always be, fashioned out of metal where there is no gold.

He watches her, unable to tear his gaze away as they are both rocking gently against the tide, surging and ebbing, flowing from here to there. Wherever that is.

The more he thinks about it, the more he wonders not so much who she’s praying to but what she’s praying _for_.

\---

Jessie never comes. She is gone.

 

**iii.**

It is said that only those who adapt can survive. He should be dead by all means. Not because he can't adapt at all - he's rather good at that. But in every evolution of mankind there comes a crucial, final step that we all must take. And this is where he fails.

The green plants remind him of that. It must be a dream because he's back at the Citadel and he's sure that he left it behind months ago. Yet here he is, amidst vegetables and fruits and flowers. This must be one of the greenhouses that he never saw, constantly sprinkled with the water too precious to waste on the masses. The air tastes humid and fresh. It tastes of life.

Is this what heaven feels like? To marvel at the richness brought forth by a fertile Earth?

He takes a deep breath and wishes that this were real but even if it were, it would still be an illusion. The remnant of a world that has passed. This planet will never be host again to this abundance of growth. That’s why everyone is sick. They can only grow inwards. On the outside, they are shrinking, their humanity stripped away one by one. Unless this _is_ what it means to be human. Clouded in the stench of desperation. Wandering forevermore.

The plants shift into trees. The seeds shift into roots. The light dims. Where there was cultivation before, there is the wild now. Forest. He looks up to the sky but there is nothing to suggest a beyond. Something in him hums as if a bow is drawn over the strings of his mind, letting them vibrate, reverberate. A melody lies in these colors, these darker hues. Umbrage rests under the canopy of unruffled leaves.

If the greenhouse was life, this is soul.

He stumbles forward. _Where are you going?_ someone asks. A girl, maybe, a child. Screams echo from his past. He knows these trees, knows this place. It’s where everything started, in a way. And yet he can’t stop himself from going deeper into the woods. The air is stuffy and stale. Dead.

Suddenly he is surrounded by figures emerging from the shadows above. Figures that are men trying to turn themselves into machines, less than the sum and less than the parts, less than everything. It’s an ambush. It’s a gang. The Mirror Brigade. Armed to the teeth.

His breath quickens. He dodges the first attack. Someone fires a shotgun. He ducks and starts running. The screams grow louder and he- he-

They catch him as if he had never run, he fights back. Spits blood. Sees chrome. A fist connects to his jaw, a bat to his leg, he throws a punch, knocks someone out, and then there’s silver glowing in the dark, a blade made of steel, with a sharp edge ready to cut deep. It rushes through the air and he can see it coming but it’s stopped short just before plunging into him. A metal hand is wrapped around the knife. He meets her eyes. She is here. She has saved him. But this is not what happened.

Someone stabs him from behind.

And this time he awakes with a start, gasping for air. Holy smeg. These dreams are getting _weird_. He never used to have nightmares. This is getting close. This is getting frightening.

It takes quite a while before his disorientation subsides. Before he realizes why he _should_ be frightened. It’s hot, he’s parched and only slowly coming to his senses. The sand beneath him is burning. Where- where is he? He lifts his head in agony and looks around. Sand, nothing but sand. On fire. More and more he recognizes his surroundings, lying on the slip face of a dune that he hoped would provide shelter and shade. The sun is glaring down at him and he remembers. He remembers reality and forgets the dream. He remembers that he has to keep going.

The only problem is that he can’t get up. Every effort is wasted. So he crawls. He drags himself on with all his strength and he doesn’t dare to look back because he knows the sight that would greet him.

A red trail in the wake of his path.

_\- - -_

And ‘round and ‘round it goes.

 

**iv.**

They are back in the rig, driving across the Lowlands of Solitude. He is watching her steer though it’s unclear what they would be steering towards. There is nothing to bypass, nothing to indicate where they are going or what they have left behind. Daylight is fading, bathing everything in a tangerine glow. The salt desert is strikingly flat and it’s strange to imagine that it was once at the bottom of a sea. It’s strange to imagine a deep blue ocean with crashing waves and a light breeze floating by, this boiling force of raw nature where now everything is calm and motionless. Dead.

He can’t bear to look ahead for long so he twists in his seat and studies her face. How she has her gaze fixed on the horizon, never tearing it away. How she is gripping the wheel tightly with both of her hands, skin and bones and titanium.

They don’t speak. They don’t have to. This is the moment. The moment where he _knows_.

In a land of forgotten myths and lingering destruction, there is no hope. In a land without hope, there is no love. Nothing can last, nothing can grow. All that ever was is all that ever will be. What made them human would make them inhuman now. Unfit for survival. And is that not the most human desire, the pursuit that drove them out of the wilderness? Driving through the wilderness is all they have left.

She suddenly takes her eyes off the missing road and stares straight at him. He blinks, surprised, but not as uncomfortable as he would be if this were real. Because it’s not, is it? Nothing is real anymore. Except…

_You’re hurt._

She doesn’t say anything, only looks at him with a quizzical expression. What is she searching for? They have nowhere to go and nowhere to hide, so he averts his gaze. Outside, clouds are gathering. A storm is brewing. A storm without rain. Soon, thunder rolls in the distance. If he didn’t know any better, he would think that the end was nigh. But there is no end. It already came and went and they were left with this.

Lightning flashes, a stark rip in the growing dust plumes they are heading towards. All of a sudden, he wants to yank the door open and jump out of the rig because something about this is unbearable. He is already reaching for the handle when something stays his hand. A touch on his shoulder.

And there they are again, just in time. The deafening roar of their engines rises quickly to ring in his ears and he can almost picture them in their endless chase. All of them. Are they on their tail? Who are they anyway? Monsters who killed a little girl. Monsters who killed his wife. Monsters who killed-

_Your wound is your wound._

He turns to her in the same moment as they enter the heart of the storm. His wound is- well, yes of course, what does she-

She gingerly brings her hands to the sides of his face and leans forward.

Rough winds pull at them. They don’t notice, wrapped in a safe space. Their foreheads touch. It’s hailing fire.

And that is all there is to it. Nothing more. Only this.

The noise of the machines is drowned out by the inferno of blazing thunderbolts. They can’t follow them here. Nothing can. Nothing, except…

She doesn’t have to say anything. He can feel it now. Blood is gushing from his side and he realizes what she was telling him all along, what his mind was telling him all along: It can’t be hers. She was stabbed in the other side. Which means that-

He collapses in her arms and remembers. He remembers that in this very moment he is lying somewhere in the sand, bleeding to death. He remembers the assault, the beating he took, the bizarre grimaces of the lawless that are roaming free now that the reign of the tyrant has ended. What else did he expect when he wandered back into the wasteland? He had heard of a city, a city with lights, but it might well have been a figment of his imagination. There are no lights, not anymore.

His breathing is growing shallow. He wants to let go, why can’t he let go? Why can’t she let him go? She’s not even real, she’s part of this fever dream, a byproduct of basic needs overriding his system. He ignores that she was there before. She will remain and he shall fade. So it goes.

The scenery has changed. He didn’t even notice. Where is the storm? They are sitting in the calm desert, her lap a pillow for his head. There’s the sky above, the vast and ugly sky. She brushes his hair aside. The metallic fingers are cold against his skin. From the corner of his eye, he spots a red trail leading up to them. He remembers that he turned around, that he tried to go back to the Citadel. At least it’s a place that he knows exists. But he didn’t make it very far.

He dreads to close his eyes, knowing that he will have to open them again, knowing what he will find. Or worse, that he won’t open them again at all.

Somewhere a dog barks, a cruel call from beyond. There are voices, too, adding to the cruelty except he doesn’t recognize any of them. It matters little for this is still a dream and stranger things have happened. If there is one small solace to be found, it’s that the dead won’t torment him anymore once he has joined them.

This is what he tells himself as he waits. He would like to wake up, to keep crawling until he draws his last breath. But that’s what he did, isn’t it? Except…

He grunts as he raises himself from the ground with the energy still left in him, to his own surprise. The world around him is empty, void of any living being, and the wind is caressing the dunes as softly as a sheath of silk and the moon shines down with mercy. Maybe there is a beauty to this.

Then he realizes that she is gone and everything falls apart.

\---

For this is the truth:

We live, we die.

 

**(iv.+)**

There’s a monkey and it’s carrying a blood bag.

 

**v.**

“Let him be guided by the light of the four realms. Let him be nourished by the love of the disciples. Let him be redeemed by the mercy of our Savior.”

A prayer. A whisper. The unknown. The unwanted.

“For she is our Savior and he is her Prophet. It is they who overcame. Witness. The fire. Witness. The blood. Witness-“

“Hush.”

Is that…?

Black. Everything is so black and far away until he realizes that his eyes are closed. He feels numb, lying somewhere like a piece of dead meat, only that his soul hasn’t left his body and is still lingering in this realm.

Could it be…?

“Is he the only one?”

It is. It is her. Her voice. He didn’t think he’d ever hear it again. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. Faint images flash through his conscience and he is too tired to banish them. It will be fine, so long as he keeps them to himself.

She is talking to someone. Maybe the devotee, a girl or a boy, a child by the sound of it, the sound of the song that stopped.

_Is he the only one?_

Is she talking about him? Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a- wait, no. What is his brain doing? Starved of sanity. He is starved. _Let him be nourished._

Starved. And alive. He is alive. This isn’t heaven. He doesn’t need to see to know that he’s back at the Citadel because that’s where she is, that’s where he left her and she was never going to come for him, nobody comes for him, he comes to everyone. Until he leaves, that is. We are always leaving. In the beginning we leave our mother. In the end we leave Earth. And everything in between is just that. Except…

_Is he the only one?_

There is some muffled answer, too low for him to decipher. Something about marauding hordes. About a caravan. There’s a shuffling noise and then the room falls awfully quiet.

He must be the only one then.

“Max?”

He mouthes her name.

_Furiosa._

She must have remained behind. She sounds careful, close. His eyelids flutter but he can’t find the strength to open them. Not just yet. A hand touches his shoulder lightly, a ghost of a contact but he can sense it through the layers of his clothing. Her way of speaking is measured, much more so than his inarticulate efforts. It’s something that he greatly appreciates. Her words carry weight. Her voice never wavers. But it’s close. He can almost feel her breath on his cheek.

“A search party found you. The roads aren’t safe. But you knew that.”

He shifts uncomfortably. Have the roads ever been safe? Only when he was patrolling them. But that’s not true. And this is where he fails. The final, crucial step. He wasn’t patrolling. _They_ were patrolling. They.

“We were scouring for resources. Can’t afford to waste them. The people would riot. Had to expel some of them. Made everything outside worse.”

He wants to tell her that it’s not her fault. That she shouldn’t have brought him back. That he knew. That he wanted. But that’s not true. He doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t want what he doesn’t deserve. He doesn’t deserve this either.

“You could help.”

She touches his shoulder, again. This time, her hand remains. A steady welcome pressure. It prompts him to finally open his eyes. His vision is blurred. As if marred by tears. But he doesn’t cry so it can’t be that.

They look at each other. He blinks and blinks until she comes into focus. In a way, he sees her for the first time. Because he didn’t know. Now he knows. They both know. She smiles. Almost. He nods.

There is a city of lights. It’s here.

What she says next is soft.

“Rest.”

Nothing more.

Warmth radiates through his chest and he is suddenly aware of the pain in his side, of every weary bone in his body, of everything that yearns for release. He knows that there is no escape but he is tempted to fall asleep for the first time in forever. Already he can feel himself drifting away, floating as if carried by water. He hopes that he won’t dream and he knows that if he dreamt, she wouldn’t join him because it was never her anyway, _this_ is her and there is no distance to bridge. This is her, she is here and he may reach out, tomorrow or the day after that or… there is something unspoken but words fail him so maybe he won’t. He can’t think right now. He really can’t. Everything is gone. Sleep. That is all.

Is this what it felt like before? Is this something he has ever known and simply long forgotten?

It’s not hope. It’s something else.

Even if he can never truly give in. Even if he has to embrace darkness to find it-

He can have this for now, knowing that she will guide him back, that he will not be lost in the recesses of his own mind. Knowing that he will be here in the morning.

There is a peace in the absence of thought, he realizes as he is fading.

A comfort.

So long as he is not alone when he awakes.

 

**Fin.**


End file.
